Understanding Schrödinger's Cat Experiment and the Many Worlds Interpretation

[pallidin]

QM clearly states that the cat will be in a superposition of dead and alive.

So, has that clearly easy experiment been done? Let's say 4 weeks, no food or water.
Superposition would DEMAND that if the cat were found dead, that the death would be medically proven to be at the time of observation.

But if medical examination of the cat clearly shows that death occurred BEFORE observation(tissue dehydration, putrification, etc...) it would throw superposition out of the water.

Superposition would demand that morbid dehydration or putrification COULD NOT EXIST.

 

[pallidin]

To continue with my rant, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE PERFORM THE EXPERIMENT, using an ant if PETA is a problem, to settle this once and for all?

This is WELL within current and available capabilities.

 

[Elvin12]

Superposition would DEMAND that if the cat were found dead, that the death would be medically proven to be at the time of observation.
Superposition would demand that morbid dehydration or putrification COULD NOT EXIST.

No, if a particle is in superposition all it means is that it occupies all the possible states simultaneously but it doesn't mean it will stay like that infinitely long until it is observed by the environment. The wave function of the particle will constantly progresses into new and different wave functions. So in other words there still would be different outcomes but they would be "cat died on day 2 and stayed like that for two days" or "cat survived" and maybe even different timings of cat's death (if the timing would be defined by a random event".

Moreover, cat is macroscopic and is always in touch with its environment which means it cannot be in a superposition state as its particles are always "observed" (are interacting) with the particles of the box, air and even itself, therefore leading to wave function collapse.

Lastly, i doubt such an experiment would be permitted by the authorities :)

 

[pallidin]

No, if a particle is in superposition all it means is that it occupies all the possible states simultaneously but it doesn't mean it will stay like that infinitely long until it is observed by the environment. The wave function of the particle will constantly progresses into new and different wave functions. So in other words there still would be different outcomes but they would be "cat died on day 2 and stayed like that for two days" or "cat survived" and maybe even different timings of cat's death (if the timing would be defined by a random event".

Moreover, cat is macroscopic and is always in touch with its environment which means it cannot be in a superposition state as its particles are always "observed" (are interacting) with the particles of the box, air and even itself, therefore leading to wave function collapse.

Lastly, i doubt such an experiment would be permitted by the authorities :)

Well, it could be done with an ant. What authorities would be against that.

 

[pallidin]

So, this type of experiment has not been done?
I find it quite odd that an actual experiment has not been done.
Doesn't seem right. VERY easy to do.

Seems more like an agenda push than a scientific one.

 

[martinbn]

So, this type of experiment has not been done?
I find it quite odd that an actual experiment has not been done.
Doesn't seem right. VERY easy to do.

Seems more like an agenda push than a scientific one.

What would such an experiment show? That sometimes the ant is dead and sometimes it is alive with the frequency of each exactly as the theory predicts. So what?

 

[Fredrik]

So, has that clearly easy experiment been done?

Not with anything that's alive, as far as I know.

Superposition would DEMAND that if the cat were found dead, that the death would be medically proven to be at the time of observation.

But if medical examination of the cat clearly shows that death occurred BEFORE observation(tissue dehydration, putrification, etc...) it would throw superposition out of the water.

Superposition would demand that morbid dehydration or putrification COULD NOT EXIST.

This is wrong. The Schrödinger equation says that if the cat is put into the superposition |DEAD>+|ALIVE>, then a time t later, the state is U(t)|DEAD>+U(t)|ALIVE>, where U(t) is the time evolution operator for time t. This is still a superposition, and each of the components has evolved (changed) exactly the same way they would have if the other component hadn't been a part of the state.

However, as several people have already pointed out in this thread, what would actually happen if this experiment is performed, is that we would be unable to put the cat into a superposition (that doesn't have absurdly small coefficients in front of all but one of the eigenvectors). The interactions between the cat and the surrounding air would move enough of the quantum weirdness into the air to make it practically undetectable. And that's just one of the problems. What I just said about the cat also holds for the device that's supposed to kill it, so we won't even be able to put that into a superposition. And if the device consists of a detector and a gun for example, what I said also holds holds for the detector, so we won't be able to put that into a superposition. It even holds for component parts of the detector, which have other parts of the detector as their environment. Most of the quantum weirdness would be moved into the microscopic degrees of freedom of that environment.

To continue with my rant, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE PERFORM THE EXPERIMENT, using an ant if PETA is a problem, to settle this once and for all?

So, this type of experiment has not been done?
I find it quite odd that an actual experiment has not been done.
Doesn't seem right. VERY easy to do.

Seems more like an agenda push than a scientific one.

There's no conspiracy here. It wouldn't settle anything. If it could, you can be sure that someone would have done it by now.

 

[TrickyDicky]

There's no conspiracy here. It wouldn't settle anything. If it could, you can be sure that someone would have done it by now.

Exactly. If a thought experiment so easy to perform in reality hasn't even been tried once that should show you something about the nature of the experiment and its meaning which is what I tried to explain in my previous post.